All The Way Home
by Ace of Gallifrey
Summary: An AU S4 rewrite from the end of The Stolen Earth. Rose wasn't the only one walking the realities trying to find her way back to the Doctor... Written because Rose wasn't the first companion to be trapped in an alternate universe. ON HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1

**Title-** All The Way Home**  
Characters/Pairings-** Ten/Rose implied, past Four/RomanaII implied, and variations thereupon. Also featuring Davros and the Children of Time**  
Rating-** K+**  
Summary- **An AU S4 rewrite from the end of The Stolen Earth. Rose wasn't the only one walking the realities trying to find her way back to the Doctor... Written because Rose wasn't the first companion to be trapped in an alternate universe.

**A/N- **Even most New Whovians know Romana- or at least know OF her. This follows the assumption that Big Finish and the Doctor Who novels have been viciously lying to us, and Romana never returned from E-Space (which, all things considered, is probably better). Also, I'll be honest, when Lucius Petrus Dextrus said "she is returning," I had yet to see the last few minutes of Partners in Crime and so hadn't seen creepy!ghost!Rose. That meant that my IMMEDIATE first thought was "ZOMG ROMANA!" I really, honestly thought he meant Romana, and I was so freaking excited it's almost sickening how disappointed I was when I realized they meant Rose. And I _like_ Rose, for the most part!

Therefore... giving center stage

* * *

_"I'm looking to the sky to save me, _  
_Looking for a sign of life,_  
_Looking for something to help me burn out bright..."_  
_-Foo Fighters_

* * *

The TARDIS landed in the middle of the street, but it didn't matter. Nothing was moving outside. There were no cars to avoid as the Doctor and Donna stepped out of the little blue time ship. In the distance, Dalek voices and human screams could be heard, but here, on this particular road, there was no sound and no other living thing stirring.

"It's like a ghost town," Donna whispered, shocked.

"Sarah Jane said they were taking the people," the Doctor responded, voice tight with worry. Then he whipped around to face his companion. "Think, Donna! You met Rose, in that parallel world. What did she say?"

Donna shrugged. "Just: 'the darkness is coming,'" she reaffirmed.

"Anything else?" he plied.

But Donna just smiled. Over the Doctor's shoulder, she had caught sight of a familiar figure at the other end of the street. "Why don't you ask her yourself?" she suggested.

The Doctor stared at her blankly for a moment, before the realization set in. Then his eyes grew huge and he turned slowly to look down the street. There she was, Rose Tyler, returned to her rightful place in the universes, with a broad grin on her face. For the longest of moments, the pair just stared at each other, drinking in that first sight. She took the first steps, but as soon as she moved, he was off like a shot, sprinting down the road as fast as his legs would carry him. Donna smiled tenderly as she watched her best friend finally returning to the woman he loved.

Suddenly, another voice screamed, "Doctor, look out!" but too late. The Dalek's fatal shot tore through the Doctor's body, bringing him to the ground.

Jack materialized just down the street and fired on the Dalek, blowing it to smithereens.

Rose reached the Doctor's prone body, hurling her gun aside as she dropped to the ground next to him. Donna arrived just seconds later, taking the Doctor's hand in her own as she too dropped down beside him.

"Rose..." the Doctor stuttered. "Long time no see."

"Yeah, well, been busy, you know?" Rose said, laughing through the tears that were gathering at the corners of her eyes.

The Doctor smiled, despite his obvious pain. "You're really here?" he asked weakly.

She nodded, cradling his head. "Yeah. I'm really here."

Suddenly, another figure hurtled from between a pair of houses. The woman wore a long pink coat and a white scarf, and her strawberry hair flowed from beneath a flat, wide-brimmed hat. "Doctor!" she shouted, revealing herself as the voice that had cried out in warning. She joined the three clustered around the Doctor, sprinting up the street with inhuman speed.

"Who are you?" Rose demanded.

The newcomer ignored Rose, kneeling next to the Doctor and leaning over him, placing a gentle hand on his chest, feeling for heartbeats. "Doctor, I'm here," she said. "I'm finally back."

With barely focused eyes, the Doctor looked at her. "Now I know I'm hallucinating," he mumbled.

The woman sighed and shook her head. Then she looked up from the Doctor's pain-contorted face and rose to her feet, facing the other three squarely. "Right. You, Pretty Boy, and you, Ginger, help him up. Get him back to the TARDIS." She turned to look at Rose. "_Ariva Lykos,_ pick up your weapon. Cover them from the front. I'll take up the rear and watch for Daleks from this direction. Now move!"

Jack and Donna stood up, but Rose remained in place, staring up at the newcomer. "Who are you?" she asked again.

"My name is Romanadvoratrelundar," the woman said quickly, obviously frustrated by the delay. "I'm a very old friend of the Doctor. Now hurry up, all of you! The regeneration process is already starting; we need to get him to safety."

Rose wasted no more time after that; she picked up her very large gun and moved ahead of Donna and Jack, who had each taken one of the Doctor's arms and were helping support him back in the direction they'd come. Romana reached inside her coat and pulled out a small weapon that none of the others had time or inclination (let alone ability) to identify.

Together, the small group returned to the TARDIS. Donna and Jack hauled the Doctor up next to the console before laying him as gently as they could on the iron grating.

"What do we do?" Donna asked. "There must be some medicine or something!"

"Just step back!" Jack commanded. "Rose, do as I say and get back! He's dying, and you know what happens next!"

"What do you mean?" Donna demanded, rising to her feet.

"Not now," Rose was choking, still holding tight to the Doctor's prone body. "Not now, please, I came all this way!"

"What do you mean 'what happens next?'" Donna asked again.

Romana stepped forward and touched Donna's shoulder soothingly. It must have been more than just a mere touch, because Donna instantly felt some of her panic drain away. Then she turned to Rose and pulled the other blonde's hands away from the Doctor. "Step away," she instructed the hysterical young woman. "He will be alright. But regeneration energy is potent, and I don't think even you, _Ariva Lykos_, could survive so close to a regenerating Time Lord."

"It's started," the Doctor gasped, apparently unaware of the people around him.

"Get _away_," Romana shouted, waving the other three back as she retreated to the far side of the console.

"Good luck, Doctor!" Jack called, as the Doctor lurched to his feet.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Donna shrieked.

Rose was crying in earnest now. "When he's dying, his body repairs itself, it... it changes. But you can't!" she shouted at the Doctor.

"I'm sorry, it's too late," he said, catching her eyes. "I'm regenerating."

Rose turned away sharply, burying her face in Jack's shoulder as a blaze of light erupted around the Doctor's body. But as the three by the wall hid their faces, suddenly the Doctor bent down, and the golden glow streamed away, shooting into the jar next to the console. As the last of the energy spilled out of him, he stumbled back, taking a moment to recover his balance.

"Now then," he said, shaking his head. "Where were we?"

The other three stared in shock.

He gave them a cheeky grin, pointing at the hand in the jar. "You see? Used the regeneration to heal myself, but once that was done I didn't need to change. I didn't want to. Why would I? Look at me." He straightened his tie with a smirk. "So, to stop the process from going all the way I siphoned off the energy into a handy bio-matching receptacle- namely, my hand. That hand there. My handy spare hand." He gave Rose a bright smile. "Remember? Christmas day? Sycorax? Lost my hand in a sword fight? That's my hand. What do you think?"

Rose's expression was still about one step shy of anvil-struck. "Y-you're... still you?"

"I'm still me," he said with that special smile reserved just for Rose.

Without another second's hesitation, Rose threw herself into his arms, hugging him for all she was worth. Jack and Donna grinned.

"Mind you," the Doctor added, still clinging to Rose, "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone mad. I thought I was seeing ghosts!"

Rose finally let go, taking a tiny step back to study him, wanting to make sure he was really there still. At the same moment, the woman in pink stepped out from behind the console. "No ghosts, Doctor," she said. "Just me."

The Doctor's jaw literally dropped. "Romana..." he said in a strangled whisper.

She gave him a cheeky smile. "That trick with the hand?" She pointed to the jar at her feet. "_That_ is cheating. Not to mention very, very illegal."

For once, the Doctor seemed incapable of speaking. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, apparently attempting to form a coherent sentence. Finally, he managed to stutter out, "How is this possible?"

Romana pointed to Rose. "The _Ariva Lykos_ walked through all of reality to find you. I did the same, but from so much farther away."

"Doctor," Donna interjected. "Who is this?"

"Romanadvoratrelundar," the Doctor said in a shaking voice. "She's my... she's..." He couldn't find the words. Apparently he decided not to bother explaining, instead asking, "I thought you were elected President of the High Council? When I went back to Gallifrey before... well... they said you'd been elected President!"

"I was,_ in absentia_. They sent a message through to E-Space, informing me of the Council's vote, but there was still so much to be done that I couldn't justify going back." She let out a bitter laugh. "Look at us. The two Presidents of Gallifrey who never actually bothered to stand term."

Donna chose this moment to interrupt again. "President of Gallifrey," she said. "Spaceman, you never said you were the bloody president!"

The Doctor shot her an annoyed look. "It doesn't exactly matter now, does it? And besides, that was all sort of a complicated... What am I saying? Now's not the time, Donna!" He turned back to Romana. "So... you never left E-Space."

Romana left her place by the console and came to stand just in front of him. Her face was very grave when she spoke again. "I stayed, yes. I figured there was always time to go back later. But all of a sudden, the walls between universes slammed shut. It took me a good hundred years to find a way to open a path again. But when I got back... everything was silent. I'd gotten used to that in E-Space, but I was expecting to hear... I was expecting to feel the rest of the Time Lords. Why isn't the telepathic link working? Why can't I feel everyone else in my head?" Her face was a little desperate. "Please. Please tell me it's because I've been gone so long that my link was severed. Please tell me it's just me that's broken."

The Doctor's face crumpled in a way that was only too familiar to the other companions aboard the TARDIS.

"Doctor," Romana said, the tiniest edge of tightly controlled panic lending her words force, "_Where is Gallifrey_?"

Looking like every word was clawing at his insides as he spoke them, the Doctor glanced away from her, staring anywhere but at the woman in front of him. "It's gone," he said. "Gallifrey's gone. It burned."

"Oh."

Romana looked like all the air had been knocked out of her, and her knees buckled slightly as she clutched a hand to her chest.

"There was a war, another great Time War, and we weren't... we weren't strong enough to defeat the Daleks," the Doctor said shakily. "They were winning, and then they would have gone on to the rest of the universe... I had to stop it, Romana. I was the only one who could stop them, and there was only one way..."

"You used the Great Key," she guessed, and tears streamed down her face as she spoke. "You opened the Eye of Harmony, didn't you?"

"It was the only way to stop them," the Doctor said.

Romana stared at the Doctor as if she hardly knew him (and in a way, she didn't). For what must have been a solid minute, she didn't even blink. Then she sighed. "Tell me everything."

"There isn't time," the Doctor said. "The Daleks... well, some of them survived, just enough to save Davros from the War and now they've bred billions of them and they've-"

"_Yes_, I know, I'm up to speed," Romana said peevishly. "I have been wandering the cosmos for about a hundred years, you know, from dimension to dimension trying to find the right gateway back here. This stuff's been bleeding through the universal walls like mad."

Then she sighed. "Gallifrey is really gone, then?"

The Doctor nodded.

Romana took a quivery breath, then wiped the trails of moisture from her cheeks. She nodded, apparently having decided something. "There will be time to mourn when this crisis is over," she said, mostly to herself. Then she rearranged her face into a smile. "Despite everything... it's good to see you, Doctor. I like the new regeneration."

"Yours seems to be holding up pretty well," he said with a weak little grin.

"And you said taking a face that already belonged to somebody else was a bad idea," Romana teased.

The two grinned at each other.

"Excuse me," Rose said, "Would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

The Doctor turned to face her. "Rose, this is Romanadvoratrelundar, last President Elect of Gallifrey and one of my closest friends for a good two hundred years. Romana, this is-"

"Rose Tyler, the _Ariva Lykos_," Romana interrupted.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Rose asked.

The Doctor's mouth twitched a little at the corners, as if part of him was tempted to smile. "It means 'bad wolf' in high Gallifreyan," he said.

"And as for the other two," Romana said, turning to Donna and Jack. She studied Jack for a moment, grimacing. "An immortal, more or less, aren't you? That's a little... sickening. No offense to you, of course, but it's just _wrong_."

"Yeah, that's what the Doctor said," Jack muttered. Then he put on a solicitous grin and held out a hand. "Captain Jack Harkness," he said in his most flirtatious voice.

"Not. Now. Jack," the Doctor said sharply. Then he pointed to Donna. "This is Donna Noble. She's been traveling with me for about a year now."

Romana looked hard at Donna. "Doctor," she said slowly. "_What_ is wrong with her timeline? I mean, you're bad enough- you've gone and done exactly what we're _not_ supposed to do and gotten yourself tied into half the major events in the universe- but look at _her_. I mean, properly. It's like she's tied into _everything_. Literally _everything_."

Before anyone could say another word, however, the TARDIS gave a vicious lurch, throwing her occupants helter-skelter around the console room as the lights flickered and went out...


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N-** I've read some spoilers that indicate that Romana being dredged out of the depths of Classic Who and onto our modern screens today isn't a total impossibility. No, I'm not kidding. No, it's not confirmed. But no, there's no reason Moffat (who seems to love bringing great things from Classic Who- example: Silurians- onto the show with modern twists) wouldn't want to bring the single greatest companion of Classic Who onto our screens to be awesome and to do all the Romana things she did best all over again (and let's face it, the Lady President was CONSPICUOUSLY absent during TEoT- where was she if not fleeing for her life once zombie!Rassilon deposed her?). All things considered, the prospect makes me 500% more excited for Series 6 to commence!

* * *

_"All these years later and it's killing me,_  
_Your broken records and words._  
_Ten thousand craters where it all should be..."_  
_-Snow Patrol_

* * *

The TARDIS' wild shaking eased, leaving the companions strewn about the console room in relative darkness. Jack and Donna lay tangled together (much to Donna's enjoyment), with Rose clinging desperately to the rail as part of a vain attempt to stay upright during the violent turbulence of the last minute. The Doctor was sprawled against the console, and Romana lay facedown a few feet away.

"What in Rassilon's name...?" she sputtered, sitting up with her blonde hair tangled in her face.

"It's the Daleks. They're taking us," Jack said grimly, as the others clambered to their feet. "There's a massive Dalek ship at the center the planets. They're calling it the Crucible."

"You said these planets were like an engine. But what for?" Donna asked.

The Doctor was silent for a moment, thinking. Then it struck him. "Rose, you've been in a parallel world, that world was running ahead of this universe. You've seen the future! What was it?"

Rose shrugged, looking grim. "It's the darkness."

"The stars were going out," Donna added.

"One by one. We looked up at the sky and they were just... dying," Rose said, sadly.

"I saw this, too," Romana said. "Every world I passed through, every reality... the skies were going dark, piece by piece. It felt like reality was dissolving, as if matter was literally being ripped apart. But that's not possible, is it? It violates one of the most basic laws of physics- matter can neither be created nor destroyed."

The Doctor sighed. "But it can be broken down into its' most basic elements and scattered like so much cosmic dust," he said darkly.

Romana frowned. "I don't like this," she said. "I don't like this in the slightest. The Daleks... well, frankly, Doctor, after that business with the Movellans, I had rather hoped never to see another Dalek in my life."

"You're telling me!" he said, and his face was grim. "Every time I think they're beaten, they come right back." Then he shook his head, pushing away the dark thought. "Rose, Romana... how did you two even get here?"

Romana shrugged. "As I've said already, Doctor, I built a rudimentary teleportation device with an artron reduplication circuit to feed back the power and when the dimensions started to collapse, I used to to break through to other worlds."

Rose blinked. "Uh... same. But without the reduplication thing."

The Doctor stared at the two of them.

"I wanted to come back," Rose said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I promised I'd stay with you forever, didn't I?"

He grinned broadly at her, but at that moment, the TARDIS shook once more, a feeling like a rough landing. From without, a metallic Dalek voice commanded, "Doctor, you will step forth or die!"

"I've got to go out," he said, staring at the wooden paneling of the door. "Otherwise, they'll just get in."

Rose's expression turned to one of horror and confusion. "You told me nothing could get through those doors!"

"You've got extrapolator shielding!" Jack added.

Romana laughed, though there wasn't a lot of humor in it. "I like you, Jack Harkness! You know what you're talking about. But no, unfortunately, the shielding doesn't work if they've disabled our defensive systems. Which, by the way, could have been prevented if you had actually replaced that faulty fluid link instead of building a primitive substitute out of tin foil and plastic piping."

"Yes, yes, I've been doing a bad job taking care of my TARDIS, you've said nothing else since practically the first time I met you, now can we move on to the problem at hand?" the Doctor said peevishly. "There are a lot of very angry Daleks out there, and pretty soon they're going to be very angry Daleks in _here_ if we don't play along with whatever they're doing."

"What about your dimension jump?" Jack suggested to Rose.

She shook her head. "It needs another 20 minutes. And besides, I'm not leaving!"

"What about your teleport?" the Doctor asked Jack.

"It went down with the power loss," he said regretfully.

The Doctor sighed. "Romana? Have you got a way out?"

She shook her head. "No. My interdimensional teleport was rather damaged on landing. I had some... unforseen difficulties."

"Well then, all of us together, yeah?" The Doctor turned to Donna, who had been silent throughout this entire exchange. She was staring blankly at the console, but it was obvious she wasn't really seeing it. "Donna?" he asked, tentatively. She didn't respond, but instead continued to gaze with unfocused intent at the console. Concerned, the Doctor walked right up to her. "Donna!"

She jumped, apparently surprised. "Y-yeah," she confirmed, nodding.

"I'm sorry. There's nothing else we can do," he said.

Donna nodded. "Yeah, I know."

More Dalek commands were issuing from beyond the door. "Surrender, Doctor, and face your Dalek masters!"

Rose let out a hysterical little laugh. "So... Daleks..." she said.

"Oh God," Jack said, making a face and laughing along with her.

"It's been good, though, hasn't it?" the Doctor said, and though the question was rhetorical, something in his eyes said that he really was looking for confirmation, that he hadn't made horrible mistakes in bringing them all to this point. "All of us? All of it? Everything we did?

"You were brilliant," he said to Donna. Then he turned to Jack. "And you were brilliant. And you were brilliant," he assured Rose. And then he turned to stare intently at the little blonde who had so recently joined them. "Romana... does it even need saying?"

"No, Doctor, it doesn't," she affirmed. "Now, if you're done being melodramatic, let's go. A frontal assault would be useless with so many Daleks, but once we've got a better picture of the situation, I think we'll be quite able to handle the situation." She pulled from her belt a small gun and held it up with a smirk.

The Doctor's eyes widened. "You've got-! Where the hell did you get a staser from?"

She shrugged. "I built it. I did have several decades' wait while I was trying to get the trans-dimension teleport working; does it surprise you that I got bored and needed a hobby?"

"So you built _stasers_?"

"Well, I already had all the sonic technology I could possibly want..."

"Uh, guys?" Jack interrupted. "Aren't we forgetting?" When the two looked at him in confusion, he pointed to the door. "Reunion later! Daleks now!"

The Doctor nodded and headed for the door, with Rose and Jack closely in tow. Romana was following, but as she reached the door, she noticed that Donna was still standing next to the console, gazing into nothing with a pensive look on her face. The Time Lady sighed and turned back, reaching for the scarlet-haired human's hand.

"Come now, Noble One," she said reassuringly. "I have faced Davros before. He won't win, not if the Doctor has anything to say about it."

Donna snapped out of her reverie and smiled at Romana. "Yeah. Thanks."

Together, the two headed for the TARDIS door, but before they could exit, the doors slammed shut on them. From outside, they could hear the Doctor yelling.

"Oi! Spaceman!" Donna said, sounding off-balance and uncharacteristically rattled. "You're not leaving me behind!"

"Certainly not!" Romana added. "I've come too far for you to desert me now!"

"It's not me! I haven't done anything!" the Doctor shouted through the door.

A Dalek voice shouted something, and the Doctor could be heard to gasp loudly, and then suddenly the floor fell out from beneath them as the TARDIS plunged down into the heart of the ship, Donna and Romana still trapped inside...


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N- **WHOA, it's been a long time with this one, hasn't it! Yes, my Jennyfic update is almost done. I just have to edit the chapter, and now that the holidays are over with, that should happen fairly quickly. For the meantime, though, I've been introducing my mother to the miracle that is DW, and I just got her through JE today (and she hates Rose as much as I do! I'm so proud...), and I just had to come back and write the next chapter of this. Jenny's just going to have to sit around in prison for another day or so...

* * *

_"When I thought that I fought this war alone,_  
_You were there by my side on the frontline,_  
_And we fought to believe the impossible. _  
_When I thought that I fought this war alone,_  
_We were one with our destinies entwined..."_  
_-Poets of the Fall_

* * *

"Doctor!" Donna screamed, as the TARDIS' tumbling fall slowed gradually, as if it were now sinking through something viscous and heavy. Heat filled the ship's interior, and flames consumed the console. "Doctor, don't leave-!" She broke off very suddenly as the swelling sound of a heartbeat filled her head, pressing heavily on her eardrums. Her eyes were drawn like a lodestone to the severed hand, boiling away excitedly in its container. Slowly, she reached out to it, unable to deny the call that was ringing in her head, her fingers shaking as she stretched toward the jar...

Fingers clamped down hard on her wrist. "Don't touch that!" Romana said sharply. "A living biomatrix interacting with that much latent regeneration energy could spark off any number of unpleasant things. Metacrises, instantaneous neural implosions, biokinetic storms... you never know what you'll end up with, and almost all of the options would kill you in seconds."

The heartbeat in her ears fell silent. Donna looked up into the gray-green eyes of the Time Lady. "Got it. Don't touch the hand."

Romana nodded, and grasped the edge of the console, both to stabilize herself against the rocking of the screaming time ship and to help her straighten up in order to reach the controls. She scanned the wide array of switches, buttons and oddities that appeared to have been wired in helter-skelter. "Ugh, he's rearranged your controls, hasn't he, girl?" she murmured in an irritated, ever-so-slightly desperate tone. "And is that a _typewriter_? Ooh, he's been treating you just awfully, you poor thing... Some things never change, I suppose..."

The ship lurched wildly, bucking about as she tried to shake off the boiling heat surrounding them as her walls began to cave inward from the inferno outside. Romana clung to the console as her feet slipped out from beneath her, but Donna was thrown across the room with a shout.

Romana hissed through her teeth and slammed her hand down on the dematerialization switch. The TARDIS groaned and limped gratefully into the Vortex. As the violent shaking and the explosions of flames around the room died down, Romana stood up properly and began dashing around the console, flipping switches and turning a hand crank as swiftly as she could. The cracks in the walls sealed themselves as the equilibrium was restored, and the port-hole discs around the walls repaired themselves, new exo-glass pouring out of the walls and solidifying in seconds.

"We must have been deposited into the core of the Crucible. Zed neutrino energy, by the smell." The Time Lady patted one of the struts fondly. "There you are, old girl. That's better." She turned her fair head to Donna. "Are you alright?" she asked.

Donna was grasping the railing, trying to stand, but fell back with a whimper of pain. "I think... I think my leg's broken," she said, face white.

Romana nibbled her lip worriedly, glancing a little desperately around the console room. Spying some of the Doctor's retrofitted Earth technology, she seized a 31st century diagnostic device and knelt down next to Donna, quickly scanning her leg, which was indeed twisted at a funny angle. When she had finished, her concerned sigh puffed her cheeks out.

"What is it?"

"Your femur is fractured," she said. "Just a hairline crack, but extremely painful, and I don't have time to fix you up if we're going to help the Doctor..."

She ran a hand through her hair in frustration, rocking back on her heels. Donna was reminded forcibly of a gesture the Doctor made often when he found himself in an impossible situation. She forced a smile around the tears of pain that were gathering in the corners of her eyes and repeated the sentiment she had expressed on several of those occasions. "Don't worry about me," she told the distressed Time Lady. "I can handle this-" She waved at the place which was already swelling and turning a disturbing shade of burgundy, "-for a little while longer."

Romana didn't speak, but her eyes expressed gratitude and respect.

"Come on then, what are we going to do?"

"First, we need to find out what the Daleks are-"

A blue light on the console flashed, and the TARDIS raised a loud klaxon wail. Romana pressed her hand against Donna's reassuringly, then got to her feet and jumped up to check the scanner. She studied the image displayed, and the readings that were scrolling across the bottom in Gallifreyan characters, for several minutes, eyes narrowing as she did some calculations in her head. "But if the planets are acting as a transmitter..." she said slowly as the realization set in. "Oh, but they _can't_! And sitting right on top of the biggest time-space Rift in this universe... They _can't_!" Her voice rose to a shout and she slammed her hand against the side of the screen in a fury.

"What is it?" Donna asked. "What are they doing?"

"Th-they're using the zed neutrino energy from the core of the Crucible and-and flattening it into a stream, with the planets as a transmitter to... oh god, if these readings are correct, they're going to dissolve all the matter in the universe!" Romana said, eyes wide with horror. "But they can't, they just can't! That's monstrous!"

Donna clasped a hand over her mouth.

Romana turned at last to face the human woman on the floor, and her posture was rigid, her gray eyes blazing and her chin held high. "This is not going to happen," she said firmly. "I have just lost my people and my world. I will not lose my universe in the same day. I will _not_."

"How do we stop it?"

The Time Lady hesitated, eyes darting around the room as she searched for inspiration. Her gaze fell suddenly on the abandoned staser on the floor. "Oh..." she breathed out, a hint of a smile pulling at the right corner of her mouth. "Oh, it just might work."

"What might work?"

"A biological inversion catalyzer," Romana said impatiently. "Daleks share an almost perfectly identical genetic code. There's only 0.00001% difference between individuals. Now, stasers use zed neutrino energy, like the kind the Daleks are using in their weapon. If we can convert the staser and use it to lock onto the Dalek genetic code, this... well, this reality bomb, I guess you'd call it, would backfire. It would only affect things with a genetic code identical to that of a Dalek..."

"How do we do that? Lock on, I mean?" Donna asked.

"We have to use the staser to fire an energy matrix onto one of the Daleks. Ideally, the supreme Dalek, but any one would do."

A gaping flaw presented itself to Donna. "And how the hell do we do that? I mean, they've got those metal shells..."

Romana's tiny smile broadened a little. "At close range- say, five feet or so- the staser blast would be powerful enough to rip apart the shell..." And then the problem that Donna had already seen occurred to her. "Oh. _Oh_. How can we possibly get close enough...?"

"Exactly. They'd shoot us on the spot," Donna said.

Romana was silent for a moment. Then, slowly, she said, "Donna... I think we have to fix the chameleon circuit."

And then she was in motion, hurtling across the space between them. She pulled Donna's arm around her shoulder and helping her to her feet, doing her best to ignore the involuntary mewls of pain Donna made as her injured leg was jostled. "Come on, Donna Noble. I'll need your help if we have any hope of getting this done in time," she said, helping the redhead onto the jumpseat. "I need you to rig up the staser."

"Me? I can't even fix a plug!"

Romana shook her head. "The TARDIS will help you. Here-" She turned away and input some data on the little numeral pad beneath the scanner screen, "-this will give you all the information you need. Just do as the TARDIS tells you, and you'll have it done in no time." She retrieved the staser, and a handful of oddments including a sonic particle accelerator that she retrieved, at the TARDIS' instruction, from the space beneath the grilling, and handed it to Donna. "There. Everything you should need. Now get to work!"

Donna stared at her, blue eyes wide, clearly shocked.

"Donna Noble," Romana said, placing both hands on the other woman's shoulders, "I don't know what it is about you, but the timelines of each and every piece of matter in this universe, and most likely every other, are converging on you. It's not as strong as it was before- actually, it has slackened quite a lot since we were separated from the Doctor- but regardless, something you do today is critically important to the survival of everyone and everything. I have no idea why you're so firm in your belief of your own incompetence, but I can tell you just in the last few minutes that you have proven that you have a good, rational mind, and frankly, that's one of the most useful attributes a person can possess. This moment is pivotal in Time, and you're pivotal to this moment, and _I need your help!_ Now please, start retrofitting that staser. I've got a chameleon circuit to repair!"

She darted away, and Donna was left holding the preferred weapon of Gallifrey and an insane hodgepodge of seemingly random items, not to mention a head full of confusion.

* * *

**A/N-** Another chapter shorter than I'd like it to be, but upon revision, this scene stood better on its own than if I were to include the next one in the same chapter.

Anyway, if you don't see something in this fic, that means it didn't change, and as I'm not keen on transcribing every single scene from Journey's End word-for-word (because let's face it, if you wanted that, you could just go watch the thing), you'll just have to rely on your memory. This is fan fiction, not my novel. *wink and/or grin*


End file.
